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A Clearly Defined Purpose Increases Productivity and Drives Performance

26th Nov 2015
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A few years ago in a CEO Diary post, I discussed the importance of knowing why you are doing what you are doing. Just as it is important for an individual, a CEO, or business owner to understand the "why" and avoid wasting time on meaningless work, it is just as important for your company purpose or mission to be clearly conveyed to your employees and for them to understand the "why" of what they are doing. Without this overview, productivity can be compromised as employees become less and less engaged.

Simply put, your employees need to know the bigger picture and be aware of how they are working to achieve this larger goal, from every to each daily task and how it impacts the larger operation. Even email services such as this, help to collate your team and synchronise efforts, such as central access to contacts, appointments, tasks, and documents. If they don’t clearly know the overall goals and lose sight of how their part impacts the whole, they can quickly become unengaged and business performance can start to suffer. As Chris Groscurth wrote in Gallup.com: "A clear mission inspires employee engagement, fosters customer engagement, and helps boost company performance -- among other benefits."

This can be especially difficult in a startup environment where things are growing quickly and employee turnover is high. Amidst all of the chaos, the mission can get a little lost or never be properly and clearly defined to the masses of new hires. However, by implementing a few strategies, you can achieve a higher degree of success with keeping employees engaged with your business mission.

  1. Make sure that new employee orientation centres heavily on learning the company mission. Clearly outline how daily tasks will help to achieve this mission.
  2. Switch the focus from processes and daily tasks to overall goals and be transparent by sharing company data with employees, so they can see how their individual work is impacting the larger goal.
  3. Reiterate with new projects and assignments regarding how these projects will serve to meet the company goal.
  4. The company goal should always be reiterated in ongoing training sessions and company meetings. Clearly conveying and assessing how the current projects are meeting that goal is also extremely important. When employees see the impact of their work as well as the areas that still require improvement, they have a better understanding of the operation and can better achieve the mission.

Ultimately, keeping employees engaged in their roles and excited about your business mission requires clear communication, operational transparency, and a commitment to listening to your employees questions and concerns. It also helps to offer positive feedback in order to cultivate a sense of pride in your employees and to work towards creating an atmosphere wherein your employees feel valued. You should also generate a habit to consistently re-evaluate engagement and make changes as necessary.

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